Nothing's More Important

Justin squeaked before bursting into laughter at being pulled to the ground by the amorous canine. He wrestled with her in a fond cuddling before he fought back to his hooves and looked out across all the ashes and soot. "Is this normal? It looks awful from here."

“No. The fires the last few days… weeks really, but they’ve only just gotten here. I protected what I could, but I can only protect my territory. If I could protect the whole area, I would,” Alice said sadly. “But it will regrow. The ash is nutritious to plants, and they’ll use it to grow the next generation, from the seeds hidden safely below the surface, and new seeds to come. Gaia is set back by flames, but never truly defeated.”

Justin Thyme raised an ear at her. "Gaia? But yes, that's quite logical. You have a solid bed of fertilizer right here, but it's quite a mess, and you don't even have any earth ponies like me to help encourage the next generation of trees or anything."

“You can do that, too?” Alice asked him, curiously. “Oh, Gaia is the spirit of this world, the spirit of nature itself. The mother of all life. Well, perhaps not you?”

He shook his head. "We have a princess for the day and the night, and one for love, and friendship, but none of them represent nature, as a thing." He stepped out onto the ash carefully and gently scraped at it with a hoof, "I'm not really a farmer, but I have done it before…" Scrape scrape scrape.

Alice cocked her head and watched, slipping out onto the ash with him, and glancing around. The sun was going down. That was good. A pair of headlights were visible in the distance, heading towards the lone, standing house. Amelia? Probably. In any case, she was safely disguised as a human, and could probably deal with anyone who showed up.

It was both, perhaps, underwhelming and a small miracle, but as the earth pony pawed away at the ground with thoughts of green and life, his life force gently flowed and mixed with the ground, seeking out the seed closest to breaking free and fortifying it. He felt the urge to raise his hoof up, and a sprout came up partly with it, penetrating the ash by several inches, promising new life.

Alice laughed happily. “That’s pretty good, Justin! It took me years to learn how to do anything like that. Maybe I’ll have you help me restore this area. But first, let’s go see Amelia. I think I saw her truck driving toward her house.”

He nodded in agreement and moved to follow after Alice even as he filled with questions. "Encouraging plants to grow is in our nature. Alchemy is what took a long time to do. They say unicorns are better at it, but they say unicorns are better at all kinds of magic. I think alchemy's made for us ground types."

Alice led the way, but walking side by side, so she could keep a hand on his neck, lightly gripping his mane. It was a good mile, mostly flat across the ash. A bit of a hike, but nothing too bad. When they reached the house, the distinct, strong smell of wolf-piss greeted Justin’s nose, making him instinctively nervous. This was a predator’s domain, very clearly marked. The fact that it was his wife’s scent took longer to make out specifically, even if he had been told before hand.

Walking along beside a human was a curious and novel experience, especially with a hand on his mane. There weren't many opportunities for that, unless one had friends or enemies among the minotaurs or diamond dogs. The wash of the new scent made him nervous a moment, even if he didn't know why it did. "Is she expecting us?"

“No, especially not you. But you’ll be a pleasant enough surprise. Don’t say a word until I introduce you, though, okay?” Alice requested before getting to the door and knocking twice, followed by a push of a button beside the door.

There was footsteps audible from the other side for a few seconds, before a delay. Then the lock slid open, and a woman opened the door. The clothing looked similar between the two, the blouses different colors, and the clothes fit this new woman better, like they were made for her. She was a bit more heavy set than Alice, but not exactly overweight.

“Alice! Good to see you. Come in… umm… pony? He doesn’t look injured… so why a pony?” She said, getting out of the way so her guests could enter.

Alice led the way to a couch within, sitting on one end, and tapping on the middle for Justin to join her, which seemed to annoy Amelia a little bit. Once the front door was closed, she finally spoke up. “This is my new husband, Justin Thyme. Justin, say hello to Amelia.”

He sprung alert on being prompted. "Hello!" He smiled with his big flat teeth at Amelia. "It's really nice to meet you." His tail wagged with eager meeting and fond wishes so far, even as he worried about her reaction.

“I, what, even... what the hell, Alice?!" Amelia began, before pinching her nose and rubbing for a few seconds. "Sorry, let me start over. Hello, Justin. Nice to meet you. Are you from around here?" She took a seat opposite the couch.

Justin quickly shook his head. "From what I hear, there aren't ponies like me around here." He put a hoof to his chest. "I hope I haven't startled you too badly. I'm glad to see you made it through the fire. It was quite a mess."

“Thank you, Justin,” Amelia began. “I expect Alice would have mentioned it if there were many ponies like you around. Though I also expected she would have mentioned when she started dating, instead of only just bringing it up after she got married. Have you two been seeing each other long?”

“You know me, Amy… I’m not one to take too long making a decision,” Alice said, gently stroking Justin’s neck. “We just met last night. A ghost brought him here… from another world, I think? Her name was… what was it again? The little girl from a few miles over. She really wanted to meet a pony, so she snagged Justin here. Lucky for me!”

Justin's ears colored as his rapid-pace romance was brought to light. "I might have gotten carried away a little, but." He waved a hoof at Alice. "She really is great, isn't she?" He flashed a smile that practically screamed a hope that it wouldn't be pried into too far.

“She is pretty great, if you can put up with the smells,” Amelia said, teasingly. Turning to Alice she asked “I know you said you had to mark the house to put up the ward, and I’m not that surprised by how you did it, but did you have to do it that much? I could smell it from a mile away, with the windows rolled up.”

Alice looked a bit embarrassed. “I wanted to be completely sure. It’ll fade in time. And look, your house is still standing! No complaining, you!”

Justin glanced towards the outside. He could smell it just fine, but insulting his girlfriend/wife/mate seemed like a poor idea. "I'm just glad you're alright. How long have you lived here?"

“All my life, actually,” Amelia said. “Much longer than I’ve known Alice. I didn’t meet her until after my parents passed away, and I had the place to myself. She’s helped me with a lot of things, and in exchange I help her out with things like getting into town, or storing most of her human things. And doing her laundry.”

“The detergent makes me sneeze!” Alice defended. “And stop being so mean to me in front of my husband!”

His ears twitched softly. "I'm glad to hear that, that you know that is. I wasn't sure how much I should talk about it. The last human I met got very scared." He pawed at the air with a hoof. "May I have a drink?"

“Certainly,” Amelia said, climbing to her feet. “I have water, milk, orange juice, diet coke, or scotch. I guess under the circumstances, I could be persuaded to open a bottle of wine.”

“Do you have alcohol where you come from?” Alice asked Justin, curiously.

Justin tilted his head at seeing Amelia's backside. "You don't have a tail," he noted with some bit of surprise. Had he not noticed until then? "It didn't get burned off did it? That's awful!"

“Huh?” Amelia asked, before laughing a bit, and wiggling her butt. “Humans don’t have tails, silly. Our tailbones end just under the skin back there. So what to drink?”

Justin leaned in to look at Amelia's back, but he could see nowhere the tail should be, just a butt, covered in clothing at that. "I think I'd be confused if I didn't have a tail." He wagged his own. "I'll have that milk if you're still offering."

While Amelia left for the kitchen, and started working on beverages, Alice used that opportunity to shift her position and pull her clothing out of the way, mooning Justin. “No tail, see? And it really is confusing, especially when I really want to wag. But regular humans don’t know what they’re missing, so they don’t miss it. Well, usually. I’m sure I’ve seen a few of them trying to wag, even without the parts to do so properly. But it’s so much harder to read that body language, right?” she said over her shoulder.

Justin Thyme bobbed his head with agreement with Alice. "I feel bad for them, lacking such an obvious part like that, but I guess it's OK. Like you said, they don't know what they're missing, so it works out. I never flew before, so I can't really get that jealous about pegasi. It's for the best."

“I miss my hands, sometimes, when I’m my wolfie self,” Alice said with a shrug. “Except when I’m both… but I have to be careful with that, it’s way too troublesome to be seen like that. So I don’t usually get to have a tail and hands at the same time.”

Amelia came back with a trio of glasses, setting down a glass of milk before Justin, a glass of orange juice for Alice, and then sitting back with a smaller glass of scotch for herself. “Oh! I forgot to ask, are you good with glasses, Justin? I don’t know how you would pick it up with those hooves of yours.”

Justin reached for the glass and pulled it closer. "It's a trick all earth ponies learn before they get very large." He leaned in and grasped the lip in his teeth while carefully lifting the glass, and soon he's getting most of the milk into his snout. Most of it… He set the half drained cup down and wiped off his snout with a fetlock. "It tastes a little different, but this is a whole new world."

“What do you get your milk from?” Amelia asked, curiously, as she nursed her drink. Definitely a scotch day. It wasn’t the most world-shattering meeting she’d had with Alice, but it was right up there. “We get ours from cows, though we also do a bit of processing to it… heat it up to kill the bacteria, so it doesn’t go bad as quickly, and remove a bit of the fat from it.”

Justin tilted his head. "We have cows too, but none of those other things. You, uh, you know, I never went to a farm, but I'm told you have to be very polite to them. They're gentle creatures, easily scared or upset." He tapped his glass. "Are they like the ponies here, mute and dumb?"

Alice nodded. “Yes. Though they are as you said, gentle creatures, but easily enough scared or upset. And with their size and strength, they can be very dangerous, especially in numbers. They’re not mean… well, the bulls can be. But they can do a lot of damage in a panic. And they don’t like wolves much,” she pouted the last bit.

“I thought you got along with them well?” Amelia asked.

“Yes, after a few rough incidents. And they never stopped insulting me,” Alice said.

Justin looked at Alice curiously. "So you can talk to them then? I thought I was the only, um, I guess besides wolves?" He really didn't know.

“I’m a shaman, so I can understand animals, even if they don’t have a proper language, like humans or your kind of ponies,” Alice said. “Like with the squirrels in my grove. And I can get them to understand me. But it takes a bit of magic. And it can be hard when they’re afraid I’m going to try to bite them.”

Justin nodded slowly as understand came. "How do you do magic? You don't have a horn. Do you do alchemy?" He reached back and plucked one of the vials hanging from his belt and set it on the table. "I didn't see supplies for that."

“Mmm, it's all about being in harmony with nature, opening your senses to it, and letting it hear your heart," Alice said. “I don't think humans can learn it, maybe you could though? You are a lot more in harmony with nature than they are."

Amelia looked at Justin thoughtfully, peering at his cutie mark, then suppressing a giggling fit.

Justin looked curiously at Alice before he noticed Amelia peering, the giggling had his ears turning towards her. "What's wrong?" He looked back at his own flank, which seemed as well in order as he could hope. "What?"

“He’s a My Little Pony,” Amelia said with mirth. “Oh, I have to show him!" With that she ran upstairs, giggling as she went.